The Doctor, of course, on his return, had a good deal of talk with his sisters.
He was at no great pains to narrate1 his travels or to communicate his impressions of distant lands to Mrs. Penniman, upon whom he contented2 himself with bestowing3 a memento4 of his enviable experience, in the shape of a velvet5 gown.
But he conversed6 with her at some length about matters nearer home, and lost no time in assuring her that he was still an inflexible7 father.
"I have no doubt you have seen a great deal of Mr. Townsend, and done your best to console him for Catherine's absence," he said.
"I don't ask you, and you needn't deny it.
I wouldn't put the question to you for the world, and expose you to the inconvenience of having to--a-- excogitate an answer.
No one has betrayed you, and there has been no spy upon your proceedings8.
Elizabeth has told no tales, and has never mentioned you except to praise your good looks and good spirits.
The thing is simply an inference of my own--an induction9, as the philosophers say.
It seems to me likely that you would have offered an asylum10 to an interesting sufferer.
Mr. Townsend has been a good deal in the house; there is something in the house that tells me so.
We doctors, you know, end by acquiring fine perceptions, and it is impressed upon my sensorium that he has sat in these chairs, in a very easy attitude, and warmed himself at that fire.
I don't grudge11 him the comfort of it; it is the only one he will ever enjoy at my expense.
It seems likely, indeed, that I shall be able to economise at his own.
I don't know what you may have said to him, or what you may say hereafter; but I should like you to know that if you have encouraged him to believe that he will gain anything by hanging on, or that I have budged12 a hair's-breadth from the position I took up a year ago, you have played him a trick for which he may exact reparation.
I'm not sure that he may not bring a suit against you. Of course you have done it conscientiously13; you have made yourself believe that I can be tired out.
This is the most baseless hallucination that ever visited the brain of a genial14 optimist15.
I am not in the least tired; I am as fresh as when I started; I am good for fifty years yet.
Catherine appears not to have budged an inch either; she is equally fresh; so we are about where we were before. This, however, you know as well as I.
What I wish is simply to give you notice of my own state of mind!
Take it to heart, dear Lavinia. Beware of the just resentment16 of a deluded17 fortune-hunter!"
"I can't say I expected it," said Mrs. Penniman.
"And I had a sort of foolish hope that you would come home without that odious18 ironical19 tone with which you treat the most sacred subjects."
"Don't undervalue irony20, it is often of great use.
It is not, however, always necessary, and I will show you how gracefully21 I can lay it aside.
I should like to know whether you think Morris Townsend will hang on."
"I will answer you with your own weapons," said Mrs. Penniman.
"You had better wait and see!"
"Do you call such a speech as that one of my own weapons?
I never said anything so rough."
"He will hang on long enough to make you very uncomfortable, then."
"My dear Lavinia," exclaimed the Doctor, "do you call that irony?
I call it pugilism."
Mrs. Penniman, however, in spite of her pugilism, was a good deal frightened, and she took counsel of her fears.
Her brother meanwhile took counsel, with many reservations, of Mrs. Almond, to whom he was no less generous than to Lavinia, and a good deal more communicative.
"I suppose she has had him there all the while," he said.
"I must look into the state of my wine!
You needn't mind telling me now; I have already said all I mean to say to her on the subject."
"I believe he was in the house a good deal," Mrs. Almond answered. "But you must admit that your leaving Lavinia quite alone was a great change for her, and that it was natural she should want some society."
"I do admit that, and that is why I shall make no row about the wine; I shall set it down as compensation to Lavinia.
She is capable of telling me that she drank it all herself.
Think of the inconceivable bad taste, in the circumstances, of that fellow making free with the house--or coming there at all!
If that doesn't describe him, he is indescribable."
"His plan is to get what he can.
Lavinia will have supported him for a year," said Mrs. Almond.
"It's so much gained."
"She will have to support him for the rest of his life, then!" cried the Doctor.
"But without wine, as they say at the tables d'hote."
"Catherine tells me he has set up a business, and is making a great deal of money."
The Doctor stared.
"She has not told me that--and Lavinia didn't deign22.
Ah!" he cried, "Catherine has given me up.
Not that it matters, for all that the business amounts to."
"She has not given up Mr. Townsend," said Mrs. Almond.
"I saw that in the first half minute.
She has come home exactly the same."
"Exactly the same; not a grain more intelligent.
She didn't notice a stick or a stone all the while we were away--not a picture nor a view, not a statue nor a cathedral."
"How could she notice?
She had other things to think of; they are never for an instant out of her mind.
She touches me very much."
"She would touch me if she didn't irritate me.
That's the effect she has upon me now.
I have tried everything upon her; I really have been quite merciless.
But it is of no use whatever; she is absolutely GLUED.
I have passed, in consequence, into the exasperated24 stage.
At first I had a good deal of a certain genial curiosity about it; I wanted to see if she really would stick.
But, good Lord, one's curiosity is satisfied!
I see she is capable of it, and now she can let go."
"She will never let go," said Mrs. Almond.
"Take care, or you will exasperate23 me too.
If she doesn't let go, she will be shaken off--sent tumbling into the dust!
That's a nice position for my daughter.
She can't see that if you are going to be pushed you had better jump.
And then she will complain of her bruises25."
"She will never complain," said Mrs. Almond.
"That I shall object to even more.
But the deuce will be that I can't prevent anything."
"If she is to have a fall," said Mrs. Almond, with a gentle laugh, "we must spread as many carpets as we can."
And she carried out this idea by showing a great deal of motherly kindness to the girl.
Mrs. Penniman immediately wrote to Morris Townsend.
The intimacy26 between these two was by this time consummate27, but I must content myself with noting but a few of its features.
Mrs. Penniman's own share in it was a singular sentiment, which might have been misinterpreted, but which in itself was not discreditable to the poor lady.
It was a romantic interest in this attractive and unfortunate young man, and yet it was not such an interest as Catherine might have been jealous of.
Mrs. Penniman had not a particle of jealousy28 of her niece.
For herself, she felt as if she were Morris's mother or sister--a mother or sister of an emotional temperament--and she had an absorbing desire to make him comfortable and happy.
She had striven to do so during the year that her brother left her an open field, and her efforts had been attended with the success that has been pointed29 out.
She had never had a child of her own, and Catherine, whom she had done her best to invest with the importance that would naturally belong to a youthful Penniman, had only partly rewarded her zeal30.
Catherine, as an object of affection and solicitude31, had never had that picturesque32 charm which (as it seemed to her) would have been a natural attribute of her own progeny33.
Even the maternal34 passion in Mrs. Penniman would have been romantic and factitious, and Catherine was not constituted to inspire a romantic passion.
Mrs. Penniman was as fond of her as ever, but she had grown to feel that with Catherine she lacked opportunity.
Sentimentally35 speaking, therefore, she had (though she had not disinherited her niece) adopted Morris Townsend, who gave her opportunity in abundance.
She would have been very happy to have a handsome and tyrannical son, and would have taken an extreme interest in his love affairs.
This was the light in which she had come to regard Morris, who had conciliated her at first, and made his impression by his delicate and calculated deference36--a sort of exhibition to which Mrs. Penniman was particularly sensitive.
He had largely abated37 his deference afterwards, for he economised his resources, but the impression was made, and the young man's very brutality38 came to have a sort of filial value.
If Mrs. Penniman had had a son, she would probably have been afraid of him, and at this stage of our narrative39 she was certainly afraid of Morris Townsend.
This was one of the results of his domestication40 in Washington Square.
He took his ease with her--as, for that matter, he would certainly have done with his own mother.
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narrate
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| v.讲，叙述 | |
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contented
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bestowing
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| 砖窑中砖堆上层已烧透的砖 | |
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memento
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| n.纪念品，令人回忆的东西 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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conversed
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 ) | |
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inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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induction
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| n.感应，感应现象 | |
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asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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budged
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| v.（使）稍微移动( budge的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）改变主意，（使）让步 | |
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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optimist
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| n.乐观的人，乐观主义者 | |
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resentment
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| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
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deluded
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| v.欺骗，哄骗( delude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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deign
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| v. 屈尊, 惠允 ( 做某事) | |
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exasperate
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| v.激怒，使（疾病）加剧，使恶化 | |
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exasperated
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bruises
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| n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 ) | |
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intimacy
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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jealousy
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| n.妒忌，嫉妒，猜忌 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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solicitude
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| n.焦虑 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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progeny
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| n.后代，子孙；结果 | |
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maternal
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| adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的 | |
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sentimentally
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| adv.富情感地 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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abated
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| 减少( abate的过去式和过去分词 )； 减去； 降价； 撤消（诉讼） | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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domestication
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| n.驯养，驯化 | |
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